Black Desert Online is one of the biggest and most popular MMORPGs in the world, but Xbox One fans shouldn’t be excited about it coming to their system.

That’s because despite Black Desert Online having incredible visuals and a large player-base, it’s also one of the most flawed MMORPGs of this generation.

These are the five reasons Xbox One players shouldn’t be excited about Black Desert Online.

1. The Story Sucks

In part, it may be because Black Desert was translated from Korean but there’s no other way to put it than the story sucks.

The characters are flat and forgettable in a story so devoid of interesting moments that you’ll quickly start spamming that A button to skip through each cutscene. It is extremely frustrating to have such an impressive playground to have fun in spoiled by a lacklustre plot.

2. You’ll Be Spending Most Of Your Time Grinding And Trying To Keep Busy

Black Desert does one thing well and that’s to give you a blank canvas to create a virtual life. The downside to this is that to get any sense of value from BDO you’ll find yourself wasting hours just trying to keep busy, grinding away at a profession that really doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.

You’ll be making potions or fishing or farming or almost any number of things, but it is a time sink more than anything. In order to level up your strength, for example, you’ll basically equip a heavy backpack then set your character to complete an auto-loop while you, well, watch or go AFK.

That’s right, Black Desert even has an AFK mode, allowing your character to do certain actions while you’re playing something more interesting, which is cool but kind of defeats the point of playing a game.

Still, at least the time you’ve wasted grinding will give you plenty of cash to buy…stuff?

Oh right, the stuff you can use your money on! At least there are lots of cool looking armour and clothes to buy with your very hard earned coins, right?

3. Armour Looks Generic – Unless You Pay For It With Real Money

That’s right – Black Desert Online has the worst visual armour progression in any game I have ever played. The majority of armour you’ll earn in-game is identical, providing no visual progression. Even at higher levels the armour and gear is generic and designed to force you towards the cash store.

But, still, at least the cash store isn’t extortionate.

4. The Cash Store Is Extortionate

Want a costume for your character? The good news is, there’s a fair bit of variety. The bad news is they are bloody expensive – $30 for each outfit. That’s more than I’ve spent on real-world outfits (which may say more about me than it does BDO?).

To make matters worse, costumes are class specific – you can’t use the same costume for your Musa on your Warrior, you’ll need to rebuy the same costume for your second class.

Oh, and you want to change your appearance? No problem, that will be 8 euros please – or 10 if you’d like to change it unlimited times across all characters (for 30 days, then you’ll have to pay again).

It’s like a free-to-play business model has been put on steroids then implemented in a pay-to-play game.

5. It’s The Loneliest MMORPG You’ll Ever Play

I could forgive all of the above. You can choose not to do the story, not to waste hours standing by the ocean fishing, choose not to care about how your character looks and choose not to part with your money in the cash store. You can at least have a ton of fun with friends and even make new friends from randoms, right?

Well…

Black Desert Online is a very lonely experience. Most players are AFK with their characters doing pre-determined actions. Those that are playing rarely want to say hello, let alone build friendships.

Bringing real-world friendships into Black Desert Online feels equally hollow. You can fight mobs of standard enemies and even stray from the beaten path, but those hoping for raids will be sorely disappointed.

In truth, unless you’re able to drag some friends along and convince them that they are indeed having fun for long enough to accomplish anything, you’ll find BDO to be a lonely, lonely place.

I’m sorry, Xbox One players, but you shouldn’t be excited about Black Desert Online. There are numerous incredible MMORPGs that would be worth getting pumped about should they be confirmed for Microsoft’s system, but ultimately, Black Desert Online is all style and no substance. Sorry.

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